It’s a sunny Wednesday morning in July, and a couple of guys in jeans and t-shirts are sitting with their coffees at a table outside Starbucks at 18th and Connecticut. They’re bouncing names off each other: “Russell Johnson, sounds like a black dude.” “Yeah, definitely African-American.” “Brian Matthews?” “Um, I don’t know, white?” This is [...]

It’s a gorgeous mid-April day in the District. So gorgeous, in part, because the Office of Admissions at American University has chosen today to be AU Preview Day.  Incoming freshmen from all over the Eastern Seaboard flock with their parents to this beacon of higher education in our nation’s capital. The booming voice of a [...]

The Community Action and Social Justice Coalition — like many American University clubs — has an office on campus managed by volunteers. But unlike other groups, it doesn’t promote a single activist issue on campus; instead, it promotes general activism. In many ways, the CASJ office, located in the basement of the Kay Spiritual Life [...]

Sitting behind the counter of the Mud Box is a small, soft-spoken man named Kuman Singh. Patiently tapping on his iPhone until customers approach, he greets them with a warm smile. If you ask him what he recommends, he’ll tell you to order his favorite drink, a caramel macchiato. As he slides off his stool, [...]

In each issue, AWOL will highlight the life and work of one AU professor. This profile is the first in a series.

Last spring, we printed a page of “Forgotten Current Events.” We’ve decided to make it a regular feature—each issue highlighting a group of ongoing current events that haven’t gotten the media attention they deserve, and adding neglected context to public discourse on important issues.

One Saturday night, I stand on the border. The great divide between two highly similar and notionally divided ways of life: that of North side and that of South side. Here, in the so-called “Tunnel,” the two breeds mix indiscriminately. They temporarily forgo their pride and sacred identity to fulfill cravings for curry, an elongated [...]

“Your visit to American University is like a premiere!” reads a new section of AU’s Web site, which lauds the birth of the “Green Room” in the Katzen Arts Building. The Green Room was developed as a replacement, or — judging from the enthusiasm of the description — an upgrade, from the old Welcome Center [...]

Imagine having to covertly shepherd thousands of children into secure lodgings at the end of each day to avoid gang kidnappings. There are 11,000 of these “night commuters” in Uganda’s northern Gulu district alone, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). AU students on campus can’t forge peace in [...]

AWOL’s Amy Goldman sat down with Brandon Wix of Found magazine to discuss how easily forgotten pieces of paper and note remnants can become celebrated relics.